By TIMOTHY CHOJI, Abuja

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a N2.3 trillion Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP) for the country, as recommended by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s led committee.

The approved sum now serves as a stimulus plan to support the Nigerian economy in the face of the disruptions and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed revealed this to State House Correspondents at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

She said the Economic Sustainability Committee made up of a number of Cabinet Ministers held extensive consultations with National Assembly and the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) and State Governors.

“The Goals of the NESP is to create jobs, put money into the economy, hopefully, stop it slipping into recession, support small businesses and prioritize local content (Made-in-Nigeria),” she said.

Ahmed further said the NESP is a 12-month ‘Transit’ Plan between the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and the ERGP-successor-plan currently being worked upon.

She said: “The total package that we presented today is in the sum of N2.3 trillion, out of which N500 billion is a stimulus package that is already provided for in the amended 2020 Appropriation Act.

“These are funds that we have sourced from special accounts. We also have N1.2 trillion of these funds to be sourced as structured low-cost loans which are interventionary from the Central Bank of Nigeria as well as other development partners and institutions.

“We have N344 billion that will be sourced from bilateral and external sources and also additional funds that we can source locally. There is a strategy that has been adopted and this whole plan is to enable us to respond to the triple problem of low exchange rate, youth unemployment as well as negative growth which is facing us now.”

Supporting Businesses

The Finance Minister said the plan has to also support small businesses that have suffered the severe impact of COVID-19 as a result of lockdowns, especially the hotel industry, private schools, restaurants as well as the transport sector, which have been so much affected.

“We have also seen a significant impact on the poor and the vulnerable and even people that were okay as small traders have been hard hit by standstill that we witnessed as a result of lockdowns.

“Council was able to take our reports and the interventions in the plan is that we prevent businesses from collapsing and also to infuse liquidity around the Nigerian economy, to create jobs using labour-intensive methods such as agriculture, facility management, housing, construction, direct labour interventions that will create a lot of jobs very quickly.

“We had also proposed in the plan to undertake growth-enhancing jobs, creating infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, solar power, communications technology and several others.

"We have promoted in the planned manufacturing and local production at all levels, we are advocating for the use of made in Nigeria in all of these public works that we will be doing as a way of creating jobs opportunities to enhance jobs sufficiency.

“So we expect for road construction, for instance, we expect the minister of works not buy bitumen but to consider the use of gemstones and cement or other materials that can be used here, that way we converse our resources and will also be able to ignite other sectors within the economy, the same thing for housing as well,” the Minister explained.

She said the design is to have 300,000 houses built using standard designs that will be done by the ministry of works and housing but using strictly low-cost materials.

“On the building sites, the plan is to have carpenters and others that will have a multiplier effect on the economy,” she said.

According to her, the third pillar of the plan is to ensure its rigorous implementation so as to become a plan that will serve as an anchor to the successor period that is already being worked on. (VON)

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